This past Thursday night, amid swirling speculation regarding a shooting at Brown University, the network's Kaitlan Collins used social media, highlighting the uncertainty and guiding the public to her channel's 9pm newscast.
Although CNN is certainly not a impeccable news source, her message seemed accurate to many. It stands as one of the organizations where you can find grounded and mostly trustworthy reporting – notably during breaking news situations like the one developing in the vicinity of a New Hampshire storage facility.
A Precarious Position During a High-Stakes Battle
Yet the news network, now four and a half decades old, finds itself in a precarious state as two huge media empires compete for ownership of its parent company, Warner Bros Discovery.
Whatever the outcome, the future of CNN has been drawn into a high-stakes game of corporate ownership, not as a question of what helps the news-consuming public.
“Here is one more case of the deep structural problems with origins in many years of policy decisions,” said Victor Pickard, author of “Democracy Without Journalism?” and a academic specializing in media policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
The speculation about which company will control Warner Bros Discovery – could it be Netflix or Paramount Skydance? – misses a broader point.
“It gets presented as a financial tale with influential figures as the protagonists, but there is scant discussion of the public interest,” Pickard said.
The Additional Factor: Political Influence
The CNN scenario is complicated by Donald Trump’s longstanding stance about a network he has frequently denounced as perhaps his primary “fake news” adversary.
Think back to the shouts of “CNN sucks!” at his rallies, his team's disciplinary withdrawal of reporter Jim Acosta’s press credentials, or his sparring with Collins in official meetings.
Trump now says that the network requires new ownership. This can be interpreted as ownership that will shield him from negative coverage and examination. That is part of why he seems to come down on the side of Paramount Skydance, which has made a unsolicited offer.
He has grounds to favor that company more. For one thing, it is run by David Ellison, son of the ally of Trump Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest people.
Paramount, parent of CBS News, also recently appointed the right-leaning Bari Weiss, famous for her “anti-woke” beliefs, as the editor-in-chief of that storied news network.
An Outcome of More Turmoil
Significantly, if Netflix is successful, CNN and other cable outlets would first be carved out into a independent unit. Such a move could be a welcome development to many at the network, but it’s hardly a secure position. That structure could set up CNN for another sale. It never ends.
If you ask Timothy Wu, a great deal of this is illegal, anyway. The prominent critic of big tech’s dominance recently argued that anti-trust laws should block both deals.
“Each proposed deal would be bad for the country, and both should be challenged by the government,” Wu recently wrote.
The Fundamental Challenge and a Way Ahead
No matter the outcome regarding CNN, the bigger problem persists.
“Our current system is a highly structure that undermines democracy, but we shouldn’t give in to learned helplessness,” Pickard said. Policy decisions – dating back to the 1930s and 1940s – helped to foster this hyper-commercialized monster, and revised policy decisions can tackle it.
Can reform occur in an era where the Federal Communications Commission chair won’t even affirm that the agency is independent? Change is very unlikely now, but that doesn’t mean it will never happen.
Measures that bolster independent news organizations, reinforce local journalism, finance public media, and prevent the consolidation of media power in very few hands are achievable – they are essential for a functioning democracy.
Regarding media ownership, larger is not superior. And news organizations such as CNN shouldn’t be pieces in the most recent corporate chess match.
